


Taking In Strays

by BurnItAllDownDahling



Series: A Family Repair [6]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Abstinence, Adoption, Anal Sex, Animalistic, Demon Sex, First Time, Frottage, Homelessness, Hurt/Comfort, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Secrets, Spardacest (Devil May Cry), Teen Romance, indulgence, sex positivity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-23
Updated: 2019-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:49:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21535969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BurnItAllDownDahling/pseuds/BurnItAllDownDahling
Summary: Nero's growing up, and Dante wants nothing but the best for his baby boy. Taking in strays is always a risky prospect, however.
Relationships: Dante & Nero (Devil May Cry), Dante/Vergil (Devil May Cry), Nero & Vergil (Devil May Cry), Nero (Devil May Cry)/Original Character(s)
Series: A Family Repair [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1548871
Comments: 36
Kudos: 197





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> No actual rape herein, but mentions of dubcon and references to Vergil's time as Nelo Angelo. "Underage" because Nero's fifteen which is underage in many places, but his partner is within an equitable age range. Gets violent and gross in pt. 3.

It's a thing that probably every parent has to prepare for when their kid starts to be a lot less of a kid. Dante lets himself be in denial about it for a while, because it feels like only yesterday that Nero was a tiny creature literally climbing the walls of Devil May Cry so he could "ride on the head," because what the hell was taxidermy for if you couldn't _ride_ on it, stupid ridiculous beautiful child, Dante loves him so fucking much. 

But after the kid awakens his inner demon and they go fight a damn demon lord and change the fate of the two worlds, it gets to be harder to think of Nero as just a child. Because he isn't. He's still on the shrimpy side, but that's real adult muscle thickening his body, and his shoulders are already as broad as Vergil's. He's faced things that no child should ever have had to, and survived, and thrived. So when it starts to become clear that the kid is developing... interests... Dante decides that he's not going to be some useless mother-hen about it. Denial won't do. He's a good demon dad, damn it.

"So, I guess we need to do the demonic version of The Talk, huh?" he says one morning, over breakfast.

Nero, in the middle of guzzling coffee -- probably too young for that, but Dante has never claimed to be a good _human_ parent -- spits it over the table. A good bit of this lands on Dante. Naturally not a single drop touches Vergil. Nero recovers, wipes his mouth with the back of his human hand, and glares at Dante. "Will you _stop doing that_?"

"Doing what?" Dante leans back in his chair, grabs a dishrag, tosses it to him. Nero catches it and starts wiping up the spill. Dante ignores the coffee on himself. He's used to it.

"Freaking me out. For fuck's sake, Big D, at least warn me when you're going to say or do weird shit!"

"How the hell am I supposed to know what's going to freak you out? And watch your language. We're, uh, eating." He gestures vaguely. Never understood why harsh language was supposed to be a problem at the table versus anywhere else, but it's his job to raise the kid right, so anyway. He props his chin on his fist. "Anyway, so, I figure they probably told you about condoms in school, but -- "

Nero actually seems to swell up a bit. "We're not doing this, Dante. We are _not_ having _this_ Talk."

Dante rolls his eyes. " -- what you need to know is that condoms are only, like, fifty percent useful for us." Nero stops talking in the middle of whatever imprecation he was about to deliver, blinking. Yeah, well, Dante figured that might do it. "I mean, I'm talking about half demons, but you're pretty demony too, so it's relevant, right? Anyway, I don't think we can catch or pass human diseases, but if you don't want to risk getting anybody pregnant, best thing to do is not fuck 'em. But if you really gotta, because sometimes it's like that, wear a condom _and_ pull out." He thinks a bit, then remembers to add: "Also, remember demons aren't really built like humans, so don't assume oral or anal are safe. You just never know when somebody can get, uh, ass-pregnant."

Nero's beet-red. "Shit. I'll. Uh. Keep that in mind." He tosses the dishrag back into the sink, rubs the back of his head, fidgets, then finally says, "The condom thing. That's, what, because of the, uh, _force_ of...?"

"No, no, don't be weird, we're not Superman. I'm pretty sure it's the shapechanging. When I'm turned on, I slip a little -- nothing too freaky, but enough that sometimes a condom gives up the ghost. Terrell said he had the same problem. Verg?"

Vergil shrugs. He's been inordinately focused on his oatmeal, Dante thinks, visibly savoring each bite much more than stuff microwaved from an instant packet really deserves. Dante thinks he's just trying to stay out of the conversation, the damn coward. "I never bothered to try."

Dante winces. "Oh, _great_ role modeling, thanks." He turns to Nero. "So anyway, if you don't want to eventually discover that you have a demon-human bastard running around somewhere, who you'll probably meet as an adult, and then they'll kick your ass for being an irresponsible megalomaniacal deadbeat teen father, pull out."

"That seems needlessly specific," Vergil says.

"Got it," Nero says, faintly. He's looking a little out of it. Dante leans over and puts the back of his hand against the kid's forehead. No fever. Eh, he's okay. Dante resumes.

"So, any idea yet what kind of people you like to fuck?" Dante leans forward, folding his hands. "Maybe I can help. First time usually sucks, but it doesn't have to."

"Please, please, stop talking," Nero says.

"Might be best to hook up with a demon the first time," Dante suggests. "That way, if you, you know, transform in the middle of it and try to eat them, they can survive it. Hell, they'll probably get off on a little maiming. Humans, though." Dante utters a long, sad sigh. "Humans don't really like near-death sex experiences, I've found."

Nero has put his head down on the table, hidden in his folded arms. He mumbles something about not maiming anybody, but it's too muffled to hear. Dante needed to say it anyway, though. The kid's been masturbating in his room or the shower lately, and of course Dante's noticed the smell of blood along with the other thick pheromones. It's pretty clear already that Nero is a chip off the old demonic block; S&M isn't really a kink with their kind, and bloodplay satisfies the demon in them more than any mere touch. But Nero's probably still getting used to the idea.

Time to press on, and get this over with. "Now, we've talked about safewords, but those don't really work on demons, so -- "

Vergil finally puts down the bowl of oatmeal. "Demons are problematic, Dante." When Dante blushes because of course he forgot about that part, Vergil focuses on Nero. "If you couple with a demon lord, or someone with the potential to become one, make sure they don't bite you. Or else you will _belong_ to that lord, body and soul, until such time as you defeat them in battle or reestablish dominance in some other manner." He glances at Dante, and Dante isn't sure if Vergil's referring to his time with Mundus, or Vergil's own defeat and subsequent claiming of Dante years before. Which are both awkward conversations. Dante's pretty damn sex-positive, but there's a limit, for shit's sake.

"Uh, yeah, well, so," Dante says, rubbing the back of his head. "Okay, I guess if you're feeling itchy about a demon, just... make sure the demon is worthy, okay? Like, if you wouldn't want your partner to murder you and turn your soul into a weapon, then don't fuck them. I guess that's a good character gauge."

Nero lifts his head and turns to Vergil. "Dad, can I borrow the Yamato? I'm going to impale myself with it."

"No," Vergil says, and sips his tea with a long, appreciative sigh.

#

But it's all fun and games 'til somebody ends up traumatized or enslaved, so Dante asks around and tells Morrison to put out feelers. After a while he starts to collect a small dossier of possible candidates for Baby's First Ride. There are, surprisingly, a number of part-demons out there in the world. Few are the offspring of demons of Sparda's caliber, of course; that sort doesn't usually deign to consort with humans, and if they do, they don't often breed successfully. Most are like Terrell -- half low demon and half some human who got way too horny for their own good. The offspring who survive to adulthood invariably end up working in the shadier businesses of humankind -- if not devil hunting, then organized crime, witchcraft, the demonic-goods trade, or sex work. Dante tosses out the sex workers and those who are too much older than Nero, because the kid is as proud as his father when it comes down to it, and Dante suspects he'll be better off with somebody else young and relatively inexperienced. He'll enjoy fumbling through the basics with someone else much more than he would being... "educated."

Dante gets word from Morrison about a month later. "I was gonna give this to you as a job anyway," the old man says over the phone. "But I figure we can kill two birds with one stone. It's in Rignas City, to the east -- you know, where that dimensional breach happened like eighteen or twenty years ago? Before the Temen-ni-gru."

"Yeah." That had been, Dante learned later, one of Vergil's earliest attempts to breach the boundary between worlds. He hadn't managed to do so, but he'd weakened things for a while, and the underworld had taken full advantage. Breaches all over the place. Mundus, testing his boundaries.

"Well, anyway, we've got complaints of a demon stealing kills from devil hunters in that city. Descriptions of the demon are, uh -- " Dante can hear paper shifting in the background. "'Young human-looking male approximately late teens, red hair, yellow eyes, big axe that's very likely a Devil Arm."

"Humans carry Devil Arms sometimes." Dante's leaning toward non-human candidates, mostly. Nero's still got some impulse control issues.

"True, but here's the money shot: one of the hunters who filed a complaint said he doesn't mind the guy killing the demons, since he hasn't actually been stealing the _jobs_ or pay... but then Mr. Redhead _eats_ them. Bones and everything. And you know the deal -- no remains, no pay. The hunter's actually the one paying for this, as a removal job. He just wants somebody to come get the redheaded guy out of his territory, so he can make money again."

Jackpot. "Humans don't eat demons!" Which means this red-headed guy is either part demon himself, or a high-order demon taking human form. The latter is probably bad. No one's mentioned this guy having horns or one stylish-if-imbalanced wing or anything. Among pure demons, only the very powerful ones ever look human enough to pass -- and a high-order demon would invariably try to claim a beautiful, powerful quarter-demon boy for his own. Dante doesn't want that sort anywhere near Nero. On the offchance that Redhead might be the former, though... Dante stands up, already looking toward the coat rack. "I'll take the job."

He hangs up, gets his coat on, turns to go -- and stops. Vergil's standing between him and the door. "What exactly do you think you're doing?" Vergil asks.

Dante blinks. "What?"

"Tell me you aren't trying to scrounge up a lover for Nero."

Dante hasn't been able to figure out, yet, whether Vergil is utterly disinterested in parenting Nero again, or whether Vergil is just so preoccupied with trying to hide how fucked up he is after thirteen years of literal hell that he's terrible at it. Or maybe he's just willing to defer to Dante, since Dante's had the job for so long. It's a little disconcerting, then, when he shows interest, because he's Vergil, and that interest is always... intense. 

"Well, why shouldn't I?" Dante puts his hands on his hips, genuinely perplexed. "I want him to have a good first time."

"That's an admirable goal. It's also not _yours_ to achieve."

"I can't believe you're pulling this."

"Pulling what."

"This! This..." Dante spreads his hands. "_Better Homes and Gardens_ shit. What's next, you gonna complain that he's being exposed to violence and obscenity?"

Vergil sighs. "My concerns are not those of _humans_, Dante -- apart from pointing out that you're meddling in a part of his life _he_ should control. That, too, is part of adulthood."

It's... a good point. But. Dante sets his jaw. "I'm just gonna introduce them. Whatever happens from there is up to them."

"Still. Meddling."

Dante rolls his eyes. "You remember your first time?"

Vergil blinks, which is his version of being taken aback. "Not really."

"Me, either." If Dante thinks hard enough, he can remember a little of it. Getting drunk in some bar. Fumbling in the bathroom with two? Three? people in the stall. Coming on some girl's face, then again in some guy's hand. What were their names? What did they look like? He can only remember feeling vaguely used and gross in the wake of it, then deciding that he probably didn't deserve better.

Nero does, though. Dante's gonna do right by his boy.

"I must have fucked a hundred people before you," Dante continues, "and none of them meant anything. Wasn't much different from jerking off. But then you came back -- and suddenly I found out sex could actually be amazing."

Vergil's eyes narrow. "I nearly killed you in battle, then came here, choked you unconscious, and -- save for the fact that you actually enjoyed it -- would have _raped_ you."

Dante grimaces. "Come on, man, don't kink-shame. All I'm saying is, I want Nero to have some amazing. Don't you?"

Vergil goes silent for a long moment... but Dante sees the argument strike home. When Vergil lets out a breath and steps aside, it feels like a victory. But Vergil's always gotta fuck with him. As Dante passes him on the way to the door, Vergil says, "And if the person you find hurts him?"

"Then I kill that person," Dante says, stopping. "Won't be able to help myself. Remind me to tell you what I did to one of Nero's teachers back in elementary, when she decided to humiliate the kid in class one day." He shakes his head and sighs. "Look, Verg, parenthood is... trying your best, and fucking up, and then trying your best again. He might get hurt if I _don't_ do anything, too. So I'm gonna try. Okay?"

He doesn't wait for an answer before he heads out. Vergil remains where Dante has left him, head down, silent.

#

He finds Mr. Redhead almost at once. Guy's not really hiding -- not that he _can_, Dante notes. Mr. Redhead turns out to be a six-and-a-half-foot-tall statue of a young man, with linebacker shoulders and a wild pouf of hair that's less red than the color of good wine or old blood. He's older than Nero, but not by much; Dante gauges him at late teens, though such things can be deceptive in the demon-blooded. Either way, Dante hopes he's fully-grown already, because if Mr. Redhead keeps going, he's going to have a hell of a time finding shoes. 

Dante tracks him down by listening to the local hunter chatter and following up on a tip about a Hell Bat infestation in an abandoned train station. When he gets there, he finds a lot of dead Hell Bats -- and Mr. Redhead, who's sitting on a partially-destroyed train car, noshing on a severed Hell Bat wing.

"You should cook that first," Dante says. Mr. Redhead flinches and scrambles to his feet, dropping the wing and grabbing the biggest axe Dante's ever seen, which was propped nearby. He spies Dante and immediately tenses into a defensive crouch. Dante salutes him jauntily. "I recommend boiling it a couple of times. All that salt can't be good for you. And the wing part is so chewy, don't know how you stand it."

"I don't know who you are," Redhead snaps, "but if you're coming, then come on." He flicks the axe up like it's made of fiberglass, even though Dante can see exactly how heavy it is.

They fight, of course, because that's how demons get to know one another. One clash confirms that Redhead isn't even in Dante's weight class, let alone a contender. The guy is strong, but he's been fighting little more than low demons, and it shows. Nero's stronger. And one up-close glance confirms that Redhead's not a pure demon. There's too much fear and fury in his face; demons aren't generally big on emotion. But that glance also tells a story in other ways. Redhead's clothes are ragged and ill-fitting: jeans with unfashionable holes in them, a faded t-shirt, sneakers nearly falling apart. He's clean, more or less, but there's something about his wild movements, and about the way he _perches_ rather than standing in between exchanges, that stirs an uncomfortable suspicion in Dante's mind.

Still. Redhead is shockingly fast for someone as big as he is. He catches Dante by surprise a few times, and his fists pack a wallop when they actually land. The axe is a beast, literally; if it's not a Devil Arm, Dante will eat his coat. Damn thing comes apart in segments bound by a chain, transforming it from an axe into something like a massive flail -- which is _on fire_ \-- and Redhead isn't shy about using it to try to lop off Dante's various parts. He fails, but Dante likes that he tries. He likes even more that Redhead backs off after a while, hooking a hand into a nearby pedestrian bridge and turning to glare at Dante as he dangles. Good judgment. Pointless to fight a battle you can't win.

"Stop _playing_ with me," Redhead growls, in a voice as deep as the throat of a volcano. Ever-so-slightly flanged. There's definitely a demon in him, but Dante can tell it's not awake yet. He bares his teeth at Dante, and they aren't sharp, but it's plainly a threat display. Not used to the human custom of talking shit, apparently. "I don't like having my time wasted!"

Dante works his arm to flex it up. At least he's gotten a good workout out of this. "What's the hurry, got a dentist's appointment?"

Redhead curls his lip. "No, I wanna get home for my early-evening jerk off." Dante snorts in spite of himself. Damn, he's starting to like this guy. "What's your _problem_? If you wanted to kill me, you could've done it by now and boiled _me_ for dinner -- so you want something. Spit it out."

Dante plants Rebellion in the ground in front of him and rests his other hand on his hip. "I hear you've been stealing kills."

Redhead scowls mightily and drops to the ground. There it is again, a furtiveness to his stance. He's not very old, and he couldn't have been this big or powerful all his life. Until relatively recently, his first response to threats must have been hiding, not fighting. Had nobody watching his back, or he'd be more confident, like Nero. "Seriously?" Redhead looks annoyed. "I just want a snack, and a high-order demon shows up to kick my ass for it?"

"Only fifty percent right on the demon assessment, but kinda, yeah."

Redhead stares at him for a moment. "You're a half demon?"

"In the shapeshifting flesh. You?"

Redhead shakes his head slowly, never taking his eyes from Dante. Drinking him in. "I don't know. Foster parents took me to a witch, who said I was half, too. Then they threw me out."

Dante winces. Granted that half demons can be literal monsters to raise, but no child should suffer such rejection. And if he was in the foster system, that means his biological human parent was already out of the picture. "That's shit, dude. How old were you?"

"I dunno. Like, six, maybe? I wasn't good at counting, then."

God. "Ever snack on humans?" If the guy says "never," Dante isn't sure he'll believe it. A young part-demon's appetite is voracious. He's making some guesses, here, but...

Redhead grimaces, then looks away in what might be shame. "Only if they mess with me. And only if there's nothing else. Humans... don't taste good."

Dante considers. He's checked records for the area. A few unexplained deaths and mutilated corpses found, but mostly things here are quiet, apart from the minor demons that make it through the mostly-sealed old breach. If Redhead's been hunting these grounds for a while, then it's likely he's only chomped on the kinds of people who don't leave bodies or file missing persons reports -- mafia, pedophiles, the usual human predators. If that's so, Redhead's been keeping the area safer by hunting it. 

"Stick to demons," Dante says. It's a command, but Redhead doesn't seem to mind; Dante has beaten him, so he gets to make the rules between them now. "Should be easy if that's your preferred cuisine anyway. But try a different area from here on, will you? You're the kind of guy who draws attention just by breathing, and you're starting to pull the wrong sort. Spread the hunt around, you know? That'll help."

Redhead regards him for a long moment with suspicion. Finally: "Move on. Got it. Can I go, now?"

"Sure." With a shrug, Dante pulls up Rebellion and sheaths it. Redhead backs up a step, narrowing eyes at him, then finally he retracts the flail into its axe shape and leaps away, bounding from rooftop to rooftop.

It quickly becomes clear that he suspects Dante is following him, because he starts doubling back on his own trail and ducking into abandoned buildings, generally doing whatever he can to throw off pursuit. Smart of him -- because Dante is definitely following him. He's doing it from high in the stratosphere, however, cruising along on the four wings of his higher form, out of range of human vision and that of most low demons, too. Redhead doesn't think to look up, in any case.

At last, the guy vanishes behind an old, rundown movie theater. Dante waits a while, then drops to land, shifting back to humanshape and carefully masking his presence. There's a sleepy, uniformed employee in the old theater's booth, and a handful of people trickle in and out with each change of the hour. The marquee announces NOW PLAYING for a movie Dante knows came out like six months ago; must be one of those discount, second-run places, though clearly the building has seen better days. It must have been beautiful, once.

Dante glides into the stinking alley behind the theater, hunting in silence. The stench of garbage and piss masks Redhead's scent well, and also makes Dante want to go put his nose in traction. Smart of Redhead, though; most demons wouldn't put up with the smell long enough to stalk him. Dante manages to ignore it, scouting carefully around, and eventually he finds a whiff of familiar scent on the edge of the roof, right where someone with inhuman strength would brace himself for a swing downward. Into a window high on the back of the building.

He slides in and knows at once that he's found the right place. It's the attic of the theater, apparently sealed off and forgotten by the staff, or maybe there's been a change of ownership since the place's heyday. Before that, however, somebody used it as a film vault. It's filled with shelves stacked high with canisters and old projection equipment. Redhead's scent is everywhere here -- touching the canisters, all over the equipment pieces. The attic gets warmer as Dante moves toward the back; sealed or not, the place has heat, which makes it quite a cozy nest for an orphaned half demon. Someone, probably long before Red to judge by the style of the furniture, made themselves a film junkie's nest up here. There's a sectional sofa straight outta the Seventies, an incredibly ugly rug, a cheesy lacquered-cork coffee table, and a huge, bulky projector set up to show movies against the far wall. There's a movie running now, in fact -- and here Dante finds Red, stretched out with his feet up on the coffee table, dead asleep. He's got a bag of stale popcorn, doubtless scavenged from the trash, tucked against his chest. An old black and white noir film -- Dante's never seen it before -- runs with tinny sound against the wall.

Dante keeps scouting around. No smell of humans, demons, or anyone else. No smell of demon remains, either; guy doesn't shit where he sleeps. Empty containers that smell of nachos and corn dogs from the theater, stacked neatly near the window. Pile of sleeping bags, some still with tags on from whichever sporting-goods store Red stole them from, in the corner for a bed. Yeah. It's about what Dante thought.

He hears movement behind him and turns to find Red on his feet, eyes wide with fury and defensive fear, axe in hand. Ready to fight to the death to defend his pathetic little nest.

Dante considers him for a long moment, then makes a snap decision. This isn't really about Nero anymore. Or maybe it is -- because it's painfully clear to Dante that this young man is what Nero would have become, if Vergil had had his way. This half-feral creature is what Vergil himself must have _been_, before power had become his guiding principle and forced him into reluctant, minimal interaction with humanity. Vergil doesn't know how to be normal because Vergil grew up like this: alone, ever-hungry, constantly afraid. Watching humanity from a distance and perhaps wanting in, but having no real clue of how to open the door. 

If someone had found Vergil before he decided to fix his life by destroying the world...

Dante sighs in resignation. What is it with him and adopting strays? He should just get cats, like a normal guy. "Hey, again," Dante says to Red. He doesn't call in his sword. "What's your name?"

Red shakes his head, searching Dante's face in palpable confusion when it's clear Dante hasn't come to kill him. "Don't really have one."

"Really? What the hell do people call you, then?"

"Lots of people have called me lots of stuff." He shrugs.

Oh. "Red it is, then." Dante slides his hands into his pockets. "Want a job?"

#

Introducing Red to the family is... illuminating. 

Vergil doesn't speak -- just terrorizes the young man silently from the upper level for a moment before stalking into Dante's bedroom and closing the door. Dante figures he's going to get an earful later. (He does.) Nero tries to hide how intrigued he is by Red, and fails miserably. He swaggers a little, especially when Dante explains that Red's going to be a new employee of Devil May Cry and Nero's going to have to help show him the ropes. But Dante would have to be nose-blind, eye-blind, and stupid as hell not to notice how the kid keeps looking at Red, sizing him up, fidgeting a little. He smells of aggression and all the things that, in the demon world, generally spell the earliest stages of attraction. Red's checking Nero out, too, in furtive glances whenever he thinks Dante isn't watching them; his scent is more clearly laced with desire, though also with anxiety. Dante's forbidden Nero to spar with Red for at least three days because Red's as twitchy as a stray cat, and too much too soon will make him bolt. Dante wants him to stay.

On Day Four, Dante comes into the kitchen earlier than usual one evening, and surprises Nero and Red in the kitchen. Red's sitting with his butt in a chair, for once -- and Nero's in his lap, securing him with a fistful of the new t-shirt Dante helped Red buy, and helping himself to a mouthful of softly-growling, demon-eating redhead. Red's eyes, which were hazy with lust until Dante came in, spot him and widen in alarm, but Nero, who is perfectly aware of Dante, ignores Dante and keeps his attention on Red's mouth. Red's grown up on a steady diet of film cliches and probably thinks Dante will be upset. Nero knows full well that Dante's hoping they'll hit it off -- thus this display, to let Dante know he approves of the effort. When Dante just shakes his head and moves past them to get a beer, Red starts to relax, which is good, because Nero's tongue is halfway to the guy's pancreas, looks like. God, whenever Nero gets tired of just making out, he's going to climb poor Red like a tree.

Dante also grabs a box of cold pizza from the fridge. On the way back past them, since Nero's still swabbing Red's uvula, Dante swats him on the arm. "Let him _breathe_, dumbass."

Nero finally licks his way free of Red's mouth. He keeps his hands on the older boy's face, however, making Red focus on him, keeping control even of his gaze, in the most aggressively submissive way Dante's ever seen. Red's breathing hard, and sitting awkwardly, probably because Nero is very deliberately nudging his cock with his hip. Dante rolls his eyes and turns to head out. The trials of parenthood never do cease.

"No fucking on food-prep surfaces," Dante calls back as he turns the corner. Then he thinks. "And no utensils, cleaning supplies, or..." A horrifying thought. "Vegetables. Or for God's sake, if you use it, replace it."

"'Kay," Nero calls back. Red starts to speak as well, then his voice is decisively muffled.

A worse thought. Dante comes back to the kitchen door. "And nobody _bites_ anybody. Not 'til you're both older and can battle to the death first."

Nero's got a hand deep in Red's hair now, holding him by it. He looks up at Dante, scowling, and the gold glimmer of the demon is high in his gaze. "_Okay_, Dante, quit being a cockblock, _God_."

Relieved that they have heard him, Dante nods. Then he leaves and heads back upstairs with a speed that is not quite fleeing. Because he might be a good demon dad, and he might have done right by his beloved baby boy, but there really is a goddamn limit to what he should have to put up with.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we get to know Red a little.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, whoops, looks like this is actually a three-parter, not just two. Anyway, this one steps back in time a little, to Red's arrival at Devil May Cry. How'd we get to making out by Day Four? It actually starts on Day Two.

It isn't at all what he's expecting, when he follows Dante home. He's prepared to be taken, of course. Dante has made it clear that there is no running from him, no hiding, and while the man has not yet laid claim, it seems obvious that he will. Such a powerful demon can have no other reason to show interest in a lesser demon, and Red has no hope of surviving any challenge. Yet, anyhow.

(Red. It's just a word, like all the other words people have applied to him over the years, but... he likes it. Red like blood, and fire, and ferocity. It is a gift from his new lord, and it pleases him. He will work hard to be worthy of it.)

What he finds in Dante's lair are more questions than answers. First, another demon nearly as powerful as Dante, both sibling and lover to judge by the complexity of scents. This one also smells of something wrong, some deep spiritual sickness or recent injury from which he is recovering -- but Red feels no desire to test his strength against this man. Even sick, this one exudes such danger that Red marvels Dante allows him free reign. Yet neither brother has claimed the other, and neither demands their due in pain or pleasure from Red. So very strange, but a relief.

The lair itself is a puzzle. It seems undefended, but Red can sense... something... in its foundations, and the area nearby, that send a subtle but powerful warn-off signal to those of purer demon extraction. It seems airy and too open, but Dante gives him a room within it that is even warmer than his theater nest, cozy and close. There is a soft, real bed within it, which Red has not had since his foster parents threw him out. A shower that he may access whenever he wishes, without first having to pay for a YMCA membership or motel. There's food -- so much food. Red has been hungry for years. He always craves meat, but it's expensive, and there wasn't a lot of wildlife to hunt in his old city. Dante's kitchen is stocked to satisfy the appetite of a growing quarter-demon boy; there is meat aplenty. On that first night, Red eats his fill for the first time in what feels like forever, six hamburgers and a rotisserie chicken and a whole bag of apples, seeds and all... and there's still plenty left. When Red is ashamed of his appetite -- humans have always shamed him for it -- Dante just chuckles and says he'll get more in the morning.

Wonders and kindness, and questions upon questions.

And... humans permit the place to exist, which is strangest of all! Their scents are all over the foyer, multiple humans who've come to talk to Dante or Nero, and those scents are not laced with fear or aggression. Random humans walk past on the sidewalk outside, and look up at the words which proclaim the building to be a place of devils -- devils who _cry_ for some reason -- and they do not summon hunters to drive the lot of them away. 

Dante has tried to explain to Red that he _is_ a devil hunter, despite being half devil. Humans give him _money_ to kill demons, but this makes no sense because Red has been killing demons all his life and no one gives him anything. 

"Weeeeell, you need a license first," Dante says. "Hunters are regulated, see, to make sure we pay taxes and can be tracked if we decide to go serial killer or something. And you need a broker to set you up with jobs, and a dealer to buy any artifacts or Arms you capture... yatta yatta yatta. You're gonna be my apprentice, officially speaking, same as Nero. In a few months, you'll understand how it works -- and probably have enough hours for licensure. Then we'll see."

Nothing in that raft of words makes any sense. Red nods anyhow, because Dante is his lord.

The young one -- son of the sick one, _raised_ by Dante instead of being abandoned or eaten -- is the true marvel. He is nearly as powerful as his fathers, despite his youth. He is also beautiful in a way that constantly draws Red's eye: a sleek, strong young body, gaze sharp with knowledge beyond his years and mouth quick to spout wit. He smells of good things, like health and humanity (but not too much humanity) and books and fighting sweat. When they are introduced and the others have turned away, Nero's natural scowl slips, and he favors Red with a shy smile. He ducks his eyes when he does it. And Red immediately feels a flutter of something that is like hunger, but different enough to be something new. What it means, he does not know.

No one threatens to kill or eat him. He has everything he needs and perhaps something new to want. His new lord is surprisingly kind, and with such strength he is of course worthy of Red's loyalty -- and if these people will deign to spar, there is a possibility that Red will grow as strong as them, with time. It's everything he could have wanted.

He spends the first night struggling to sleep amid strange scents, in the soft bed, in the warm room, and then finally he drops off -- and jolts awake with his heart pounding in his ears and his hand already reaching for the axe-handle that's propped against the wall nearby. His mind rings with a voiceless whisper. _You aren't alone_.

The room is still, and Red realizes it's just the dream, again. He slumps in his bedsheets, letting the axe go, and covering his face with one shaking hand.

"Sorry," says a voice, and Red jerks and scrabbles into a crouch and grabs the axe again. But it's only Nero, slipping out of shadows near the open window. (Red always leaves the window open, even in winter. That way he usually knows what direction an attacker will come from.) Nero is unarmed, clad in old sweatpants and a tank top, clearly not far out of bed himself -- and yet power sits within him, heavy as a black sun. He might mean to seem harmless, but his presence alone is a threat. "Didn't mean to scare you."

Red tries to make himself relax. He reeks of fear-sweat from the dream. Pointedly, he lets go of his axe, so that Nero will know Red is no longer afraid, even if he actually is. "You didn't."

Nero does not challenge this, to Red's relief. He leans against the wall by the window, incongruously small and slim and human-looking, even as that terrible power within him belies the image. "Uh, I can leave, if you want. Probably should've knocked before coming in, but Dante told me not to."

Red blinks in confusion. "He told you not to knock?"

Nero has the grace to look a little ashamed, ducking his eyes. "Well, he _meant_ that I wasn't supposed to bother you, while you get settled in. But what he _said_ was, 'Don't go knocking on his door all the time and driving him nuts.' So."

So Nero has gotten around the command of their lord by entering through the window. It's insubordination, but clever, and Red finds himself amused enough to relax a little. "I'll have to keep that trick in mind."

"It comes in handy. Don't try anything like it on my father, though, or at least not 'til he likes you."

"Does he like anyone?" Red means this sincerely, but Nero laughs as if he's made a joke. It's a good laugh, and the soft, almost purr-ish reverberation of it makes Red suddenly realize maybe there is a reason Nero has come to his room in the dead of the night. Maybe it's the same reason neither Dante nor Vergil have laid claim to Red; Nero has smelled of anxiety and aggression since Red arrived, and here he is now deliberately flouting their lord's orders to get closer. Dante is unusually kind. Perhaps, if Red is too young and weak to be of interest to him, he's decided to let Nero have his discards.

Red decides to probe. "You trying to sneak up on me while I'm sleeping? Testing your stealth?"

"Oh. No. I, uh, I'm not good at stealth, so I probably _should_, but that's not why I came." Nero blushes and rubs the back of his head. "To be honest, I... couldn't help myself. I don't know if it's some kind of weird demon thing or what, but God, I wanna fight you so bad, I can't sleep."

Red nods and gets to his feet, pleased to be deemed a worthy opponent. "Yeah. Let's go, then." A good fight will take his mind off the dream, too.

"I can't. Dante ordered me not to until later in the week."

This seems weirdly arbitrary to Red. "You've defied him once already..."

"Well, yeah. But he meant this one. I know which of his chains to yank, and which to leave alone. He's being weird about you for some reason." Nero considers Red for a moment, thoughtfully, and then he sighs in irritation. "So since I can't fight you, I figured maybe I could get to know you the old-fashioned way: by talking." Nero shrugs -- then double-takes. "Okay, look, I know it's my fault for barging in on you, but, uh, could you put that away?"

Mystified, Red glances at his axe. Nero cough-laughs. "I meant your dick, buddy." He bites his bottom lip, shifts from foot to foot, and in the process gets close to the window, so Red gets a whiff of his very noticeable sexual interest. "You always sleep naked?"

Red tilts his head, fascinated by the contradictions of Nero's words with his manner, and that scent. He wants Red. He has come here, bristling with the need to dominate Red -- and yet he does not act on that need. Curious, Red does not bother to cover himself, instead putting a hand on his hip and letting Nero take in a surreptitious eyeful, since -- despite his complaints -- he obviously likes what he's seeing. "Clothes make it harder to get out of bed if I'm attacked," Red says. It's only marginally true, but makes a useful excuse to keep studying Nero. "And I don't always have money or water to wash my clothes if I get blood on them. Skin's easier to clean."

"Oh. I guess that makes sense." Nero's still trying to avoid looking at Red. "I can go, if you want. Like I said, sorry for not knocking."

_Skittish,_ Red thinks with sudden hunger, before sharply reining his hunting instincts in. He is not the stronger, here; it isn't his place to take the lead. But Nero's shyness keeps making him ping like prey on Red's senses. It's maddening. Unsure of what else to do, Red turns to pick up a pair of sweatpants, which Dante helped him buy just that afternoon. 

As he dresses, he says, "I would have woken anyway. Talking helps, actually."

"Yeah, seemed like a pretty shit-tastic dream." Nero relaxes a little and grabs the chair that sits at the desk in the room that Red hasn't touched. He swings it around and straddles the chair backwards, folding his arms and resting his chin on them, silvery eyes tracking Red's every movement.

"It's just a dream."

"Dante says talking about dreams helps them go away." Nero shrugs. Then he coughs with visible unease; the image of a small child curling against Dante, weeping over a dream, probably clashes with the tough-guy image he's trying to present. "But, uh, you know, you don't have to."

Such a strange little predator, alternately posturing and flinching despite his incredible power. Red doesn't know what to think of such behavior, but he cannot help liking it. "I don't mind." Then he sobers. "The dream is just... hands. A lot of hands. Reaching for me from the dark. They touch me, and they say, 'You're not alone,' and then I wake up." Screaming, the first time -- but that had been when he was little. He's had lots of practice waking in silent terror, since. "It doesn't seem like it should be scary."

"What scares us, scares us," Nero says, with a shrug. Then he sobers. "I, um, got kidnapped by demons when I was four. They would've tortured me to death if I hadn't popped this and started using it." He lifts his armored arm, the mark of his nonhuman heritage. "But you know what sent me into shitfits, after all that? Like, pissing-my-pants scared? Milk."

"Milk." Red lets his voice reveal his skepticism.

"Not anymore! But when I was a little kid, yeah. Dante gave me some milk with my cereal one day, and I apparently tried to tear his fucking head off. I don't remember doing that. PTSD or something." Nero rubs the back of his head, grimacing. "Later, we figured out that it was because of my dad. Dad had a... a device, attached to him at one point. It was sucking out his blood and replacing it with this... stuff. White stuff that looked like milk. I guess I saw that at some point, and..." He shrugs.

Useful information about the waiting menace that is Vergil, which Red files away for later. "I've never been attacked by, uh, _hands_," he says, thoughtful. "Claws, yes. Hands..." He shrugs. "Humans don't usually try to hurt me. They just tell me to leave."

Nero flinches. "Oh. Shit. Uh, sorry."

Red shrugs, sitting down now that he has pants on. "They prefer their own kind, same as demons."

"You're only half demon, dude. You _are_ their kind, and demonkind too."

Red frowns in surprise. "Do you really believe that?"

Nero frowns back. "It's the truth. What, you don't?"

"As a child, I was bigger and stronger than human children, and..." He gropes for a good word. "Colder. Some tried to bully me, and I beat them within an inch of their lives to warn off other attempts. It wasn't just a calculated thing, though. I _needed_ the violence. I needed blood, so I caught small animals and ate them, or raided the fridge and stole meat. When my foster parents told me to leave and never return... I don't blame them for it."

Now Nero's scent is spiked with anger. "I do. They were your fucking _parents_."

"And they knew a predator when they saw one." Red shrugs.

Nero sets his jaw. "My grandmother was human. She loved her kids -- half-demons! Like you! And after Sparda died, she protected them, until she died herself. That's what good parents are supposed to do, no matter if they're human or demon or whatever!"

Red blinks, genuinely surprised. What he suggests seems impossible. Red has spent years simply accepting his human parents' rejection as nature, inevitable. But maybe that's why so much of Dante's behavior makes no sense. He is a demon raised -- and loved -- by a human. Red can't wrap his head around it.

While he ponders, though, Nero stops trying not to look at him. It's impossible to know what he's thinking; sometimes he has his father's face. But then his scent shifts and his gaze lingers on Red's abdominals and really, it's not all that hard to tell what's on his mind anymore. After a moment of this, however, Nero wrenches his gaze away and looks abashed by his own desire. 

A demon raised "human style" apparently fights himself, rather than simply taking what he needs. No wonder they are both confused -- Nero by his own instincts, and Red because Nero will not act upon them.

Then it is up to Red to settle the matter. He sets his jaw and gets up, going to stand over Nero. Nero sits back as he approaches, as warily as the lesser demon he isn't... but then he looks at Red again, whose abdominals are now close enough to touch, and he swallows. He has the right to touch, but he does not touch. It makes no sense.

"You want to lay claim to me," Red explains, since Nero has said he doesn't even understand what he's resisting. "That's why you want to fight me. I'm a rival, strong enough to be a threat -- eventually -- and you need to put me in my place. But there are other ways for you to establish dominance." He steps closer still, offering, hungry himself. He hopes he's doing it right. He could have tolerated Dante, and would never have dared to resist Vergil... but Nero is beautiful and powerful and interesting, and Red _wants_ this. It's the first time he's ever wanted it, and it is a heady thing.

Nero twitches his gaze up to Red's face. "I... I don't... it's not like that."

It's not quite a lie. Red tilts his head, trying to fathom which part of what Nero said is wrong. "What is it like, then?"

"God, you're so... direct." Nero rubs a hand over the back of his head, then gets up, pushing the chair aside. "And fucking tall. I'm getting a crick in the neck. Okay." He takes a deep breath. "You're... you're hot, okay? I admit it. And I know Dante... shit. He thinks more like a demon than you might realize. Than even he realizes, sometimes. I know he went... looking for you... for me."

As Red has also begun to suspect. "Then you should mount me, and please him."

"Oh my God." Nero laughs uneasily, face beet-red. He smells of embarrassment enough to eclipse his lust, which makes no sense whatsoever. "First of all, I'm so _not_ going to fuck you to 'please' Dante. That's batshit."

Red puts his hands on his hips, tilting his head again. "Why not? You clearly want me. I want you, too. One fuck to please them all." He had picked that one up from Porno Night at the theater, a few years back. _Lord of the Cockrings,_ part 3.

"Will you give me a minute? Fuck. Okay." Nero takes a deep breath. "It's just... I think you're like my father, see? More demon than human -- in the head, if not, you know, genetically. I was like that, once. You have to be, to survive demons; I get it. But Dante showed me we don't _always_ have to be. When it's safe, we can be... both. We can love people, and... and have sex because we want to, not because somebody stronger comes along and _forces_ us to. Or because we want to please some completely different person. Get it?"

Red sighs. "You're stronger, _and_ I want to, _and_ it will please our lord."

Nero rubs his eyes as if Red is the one being obtuse. "Look, he's not my _lord_. He's my father, in all the ways that count except he also happens to be my uncle. And I know him. He might have gone looking for you, at first, because -- " He blushes and looks away, then bulls on. "But he brought you here, and told me to back the fuck off, because now it's about you, too. Now he wants to help you. That's the kind of guy he is. Crazy as fuck, bad with money, kind of a dumbass. But he cares about people, and when he does, he'll do anything for them. Change the fucking world, if he has to." Nero takes a deep breath. "And I want to be like him."

Red stares at him.

"Don't look at me like that, it's freaking me out." When Red snorts a laugh, Nero smiles too, then bites his bottom lip. "What I'm saying is, I, uh, I really want to... be your friend, at least, if we're going to do anything else. It doesn't have to be romance, but I want to be able to... care about you. And I want you to care about me. Okay?"

At last, something comprehensible. Nero wants to be an _honorable_ demon lord, who does what is best for the demons he rules. It's unusual for demonkind, but not unheard-of. "Yes." And then, because the scents of Nero's embarrassment and frustration are driving him mad with the need to respond, Red decides to do something extremely inappropriate. Without waiting for Nero's command, Red bends and picks him up and takes three steps and puts him up against a wall, and then kisses him. Nero freezes in pure surprise for all of about three seconds -- and then, like a flower unfurling, he shudders and his mouth opens and he curls 'round Red, arms and legs tightening immediately, fingers of the human hand threading into his hair and the claws of the demon hand pricking Red's bare shoulders. It's delicious. Red growls a little and presses harder against him, suggesting. _I could hold you here all night. I could hold you down. You could rake me with your claws; I would like that._ And as if he has heard these suggestions, Nero moans into his mouth and smells then of such intense arousal that Red finally understands one of the problems between them. Nero does not want to mount; he wants to _be mounted_. Well, well. Red is more than willing to subordinate himself to a more powerful demon's wishes.

Still, he lets Nero set the pace, and keeps his caresses slow, mindful of that earlier observation about Nero's skittishness. When he slides a hand under the boy's shirt, playing fingers over those perfectly-formed abdominals and one tight little nipple, Nero tears free of his mouth and makes a broken-voiced sound. "Fucking _hell_."

That sounds promising. To be sure, he lowers Nero a little on the wall and adjusts his hips so that the boy can feel Red's readiness. "Do you still want me to keep this 'put away'?"

To his surprise, Nero hesitates, swallowing hard and making a visible struggle to rein in his libido. "F-friends. Remember. I want to." Swallow. "Be friends."

Red picks him up again, carries him over to the bed, lays him on it, and props himself above Nero, rocking them slowly together. Nero's hard as stone too, and every movement makes him writhe on Red's sheets. "We can be friends like this, can't we?" He drops to one elbow and licks a line from Nero's collarbone up to his jaw. Nero makes a frantic sound, and -- oh -- jerks his chin up, baring his throat to Red shamelessly. Red growls and sets his teeth against the boy's skin. It's just a tease; he doesn't have the strength to claim Nero, yet. One day, though... the thought arouses him so fiercely that he has to move away and set his teeth in Nero's shoulder, instead. The temptation to do more is too great.

Nero hisses in pleasure at the bite. But then he shudders violently, and puts a hand on Red's chest. He's breathing hard, his skin flushed and dotted with lust-sweat... and yet he says, "Shit. Shit. Stop."

Red pushes off him immediately, though he remains in place on his hands and knees above Nero, ready to obey at once should Nero command Red to resume. Nero blinks at this, then chuckles a little, breathlessly and ruefully. "Well, that's good, I guess. Started feeling like we were maybe, uh, too far gone."

"You'd rip my head off if I did anything you didn't want."

"Oh. Well, yeah, I guess there's that." He licks his reddened lips, and Red wants to devour his mouth again. Then Nero frowns. "What if it was the other way around, though? What if _you_ were stronger?"

Red can't help himself. He cups Nero's face, which makes the boy blink. "I'm a demon," he says, "or maybe this is the human side of me. Maybe I'm just proud. But I don't just want to mount you. I want to make you _mine_. I want you begging for me, shouting, _destroyed_ by what I do to you. It's no good if you don't want it."

Nero's eyes have grown wide, and he swallows again. "Holy fucking shit."

Red shrugs. "I don't know if I could actually do it. But I want to try." He drags a thumb over Nero's sweet lips, in lieu of kissing them. "When you permit."

"O-okay." Then Nero puts both hands over his face for a moment, groans, and sighs. "Yeah. Sorry. This is, um, too fast for me. I just want to be sure."

"Hnh. Tomorrow night, then." Red smiles as he says it. But if Nero changes his mind... 

Nero laughs. There is deep regret in his expression when he sobers. "I'd, uh, better go." He doesn't want to.

Red does not want him to. "Stay," he says. "I won't press you." But he wants Nero's scent on his pillows, in his sheets. Even if Nero has not claimed him, it settles something in his heart to know himself desired. One day Red means to carry this delicious boy's mark -- and one day, if he is very fortunate, Nero will bear his in turn.

Nero squirms. "I shouldn't."

Red frowns in confusion. "Will it make you feel more like Dante, to leave?"

Nero blinks in surprise, then bursts out laughing. "Kinda? Lady -- that's one of Dante's allies, a human woman -- once told me he fell asleep on her, in the middle of her trying to seduce him. She was so disgusted she didn't try again." Then he blinks, and sobers. "But now I get it. He was holding out for Vergil. And now that they have each other again... they don't like being apart from each other, these days." He falls silent. Red gets it. He's hardly seen the brothers together in the day he's been in the lair, but there is a tie between them that is palpable, even distanced in space and time.

And because Nero wants something similar for himself, someday, he gingerly settles into Red's bed. Red gets off of him, and they move under the covers. He curls on his side, granting Nero most of the bed. Nero curls up in front of him -- and then, after a long moment during which Red can practically feel him trying to decide what to do, he reaches back and grabs Red's arm, and pulls. Red moves closer carefully, slowly, mindful of his skittish quarry. He drapes his arm over that slender waist and breathes in that soft, loose white hair, and every inch of him becomes content. His cock is still hard enough to hurt as he nudges it against Nero's backside -- in this position it cannot be helped -- but contact eases the frustration. Anticipation can be pleasurable, too, under the right circumstances. 

Nero shivers a little at the touch of Red's cock, and then he squirms. And squirms again. He's not moving away from Red, but he's not comfortable. "Something wrong?" Red asks.

Nero ducks his head. "Nothing. Just... really fucking horny." He chuckles uneasily, aware that his condition is his own fault.

"Mmh. Me, too." Red pulls his hand back, and slides it into his sweatpants. He's unbelievably hard. With a soft sigh, he begins working it with that hand. He's certainly not going to have to do it for long.

Nero feels what he's up to and moves a little away. "Whoa, buddy, really? You, uh, want some alone time?"

"No. I just want to sleep tonight." And the thick scent of Nero's arousal will be a torment, otherwise.

"Oh." Nero falls silent. Endless dithering is apparently the human custom he means to follow most closely. In the end, however, Nero moves his hand to himself too. Jerkily at first, then with rising excitement, he strokes himself, and turns his face into the pillow because now and again he cannot seem to help making a little whimpering sound of pleasure. It's unbelievably alluring. Red slows down his own strokes so he can match Nero's pace, letting the boy's cries goad and guide him. In his mind's eye he is fighting Nero, and then pinning him, sinking teeth deep into the back of his neck. He is licking his way down Nero's spine, pulling his hips up, reaching between his thighs to massage his lovely cock until Nero begs for him. Then he's holding Nero down, fucking into him with long, deep strokes while Nero curses and demands more.

In reality Nero cannot restrain himself that long, and spills into his hand as Red growls against his shoulder. He is sobbing, bucking, babbling, "Oh God, please, fuck, 'm _coming_ andit'ssogood -- "

Red thrusts hard against Nero's ass as he comes in his sweatpants; he can't help it. Then he groans and relaxes, despite the mildly unpleasant stickiness trapped against his skin. "Better?"

Nero's still twitching with aftershocks. "Y-yeah. Fuck." He noisily catches his breath for a moment, then groans again, this time in relief. "Holy shit. I jerk off all the time. It's never been that good."

"Mmhn." And Red is already sleepy. "Something in you knows what it needs."

Nero goes silent at that. Red leaves him to his thoughts. Something in him knows what he needs, too.

In the morning before dawn, Nero is still in Red's bed, softly asleep, incongruously delicate amid the tumbled sheets. Red sits up and looks at him and feels it again -- that hunger-like flutter. It makes him want to touch Nero, but that might wake him. He gazes down at the boy instead, memorizing his features and thinking, _It would be good to be worthy of him_.

This thought pushes him out of bed. He will not be a freeloader, so he sets out for a hunt, both to explore this new city that Dante has brought him to and to find something that might qualify as prey. He's lucky at once: a few blocks from Devil May Cry, there's an enormous park edging into the suburbs. He scents deer and follows the trail and finds his quarry in minutes, to his delight. When it is gutted and he hangs it to bleed, he sits down on a rock nearby to watch the sunrise. It's a good place, this city. A good lair. It feels very strange to be happy. He's not sure what to make of the feeling.

Back at Devil May Cry, Red angles the quartered deer into the sink to drain further, deposits the stripped, rolled hide in front of Dante's door as a gift, then goes to shower. He washes his clothes and hangs them up to dry and is on his way down the hall, naked, back toward his room... when a shadow on the landing moves. He stops at once, alarmed, and nearly reaches into etherspace for his axe. Then the shadow resolves into Vergil, and Red is glad that he did nothing which might antagonize this very dangerous demon. He stops, head tilted down, gaze on the floor, to await Vergil's commands.

"My son is beginning to love you," Vergil says.

It's such a shock -- both because Red isn't expecting the words from another demon, and because he finds himself _pleased by_ the words -- that he so forgets caution as to look up and meet Vergil's eyes. They aren't as terrifying as they could be, he sees at once. Icicles cut cross-section, so cold are they, but there's nothing in this man that hates Red, or fears him, or wishes him ill. No feeling whatsoever -- for Red. That he is here, confronting Red, reveals his feeling for Nero.

"Is this where you say you'll kill me if I hurt him?" Red blurts. It is as close to a challenge as he dares. It's also something that he knows fathers say, because that's how it goes in movies.

"Then he would still be hurt. It's a pointless thing to say." As if he's lost interest in the conversation, Vergil turns to move past Red. When he draws level, however, he stops for a moment, and turns his head slightly toward Red. "You simply will not hurt him. Doing so is unacceptable. Is that understood?"

Red swallows. "Understood. I will not."

He hopes that's it -- but Vergil lingers a moment longer, silent. Red holds as still as he can, not even breathing. Some predators attack any movement.

"There's something about you that troubles me," Vergil says, very softly. "I can't put my finger on it, yet. But I will. Soon."

Then he is gone, striding in utter silence down the landing, back into shadow. Red waits for thirty long, tense breaths, but when no sword-strike comes out of the dark to bisect him, he lets out a relieved sigh and moves on.

Nero's gone, to Red's sorrow, though he's left a few things behind. In the nightstand that Red has never opened before, he finds more of Nero's scent, along with a box of tissues and a tube of some kind of clear, slippery liquid -- oh. _Oh_. 

Red grins, horrifying Vergil encounter forgotten, and flops into the bed. He breathes the boy's scent from his sheets and it makes him so very hungry that he rolls onto his back and takes himself in hand and shudders out an orgasm in seconds, biting his lip so that he will not cry out. Then he cleans himself with a tissue and slides into sleep -- only waking when Dante says loudly from downstairs, "What the _hell_ is that in my sink." Then Red is terrified that he's displeased his lord, until he also hears Nero say, "Oh, hey, cool, a snack!" Then it's okay. Better than okay.

It's all going to be okay, he thinks, relieved. This choice he's made, these people he's joined, this new life he's been presented with. These new hunting grounds are good. It is good to be falling in love. It is good to be of use, to his lord and to his fellow demons. And it is best of all to be

_not alone_

He falters. The not-voice from his dream.

It shatters his contentment. Thus Red spends the rest of the day holding himself, and wishing that he was not afraid.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna add a Graphic Violence tag; warning because this chapter has some gross body horror stuff happening.

Vergil stands on the roof of Devil May Cry, breathing.

It's better this week. Better every week that he breathes without Mundus' leash choking his lungs and constricting his heart and digging into his spine. Better in the presence of his son, who is strong and so wholesome that Vergil feels stronger, and less wretched, just from spending time in his presence. Better in the arms of Dante, who still calls him a dumbass by day -- but holds him close at night, and whispers, "Never again. I've got you, Verg. I'll never let you fall again." Just words... but with repetition, they feel a little more true every week.

_Do you think a few words can rid you of the scars I etched into your soul, my favorite?_

_Depending on who says them, yes_, he thinks back with irritation, and the voice subsides. It does seem to go away more quickly, these days. That's very good.

It's also good that no longer must he devote every iota of his energy to pretending normalcy; with time, it has become less and less an act. He's still not happy about his current normal. To be weaker than his own son, and much weaker than his twin, is unbearable. His inner demon... he thinks it lives. He's not sure. Dante has promised to surprise attack him at some point, and Vergil finds this oddly comforting. Like old times, when they were children. Vergil found Dante's incessant attacks infuriating, back then -- but the hair-trigger reflexes that Dante forced him to develop were what saved him on That Day, when the demons came after two eight-year-olds and Sparda's exhausted, grief-stricken widow. Those reflexes, and his demon.

Pointless to fret about it. The demon never had any patience for such things. It will return if it can. If it cannot, Vergil will adapt.

And in the meantime, he has clarity enough to focus on something outside himself, for a change. Dante is well. Better than well. Dante is happy, because apparently the deepest desire of Dante's heart has always been a family, and now he has both his brother and his adopted son/nephew living with him. He's even started adopting strays. (Vergil's going to have to break him of that habit quickly, or Devil May Cry will end up as a halfway house for feral half-demons learning the pleasures of pizza over human flesh.) Nero is well, too, though it is sobering to realize Vergil has come back into his son's life just in time to witness his maturation into adulthood. He's missed so much. But Nero is healthy and strong, untwisted by his own childhood traumas -- and considering there was a time when Vergil despaired of even being able to give him that much... he'll take it.

Which leaves Nero's little toy, Red.

Vergil does not dislike Red. Quite the contrary: he approves of Dante's choice, now that he's gotten a good read on the boy. Nero is too much for a human; he would _adopt_ one of that kind, and devote himself to them as protector, since humans with the strength to fight alongside a part-demon are rare. To have an equal partner, however -- someone he can rely upon -- he needs at least a part-demon like himself. And Red is a survivor after Vergil's own heart, though thankfully less ambitious. The boy seems content to serve Dante as a subordinate, and submit himself to Nero's hungry demands. He'll make a good lieutenant, should Nero begin the secondary maturation cycle into a demon lord -- and Vergil reminds himself to warn Dante about that; Vergil can smell the marker for it in him, but Dante might not be able to. In any case, Red is an eminently suitable first lover for Nero.

Still. They know hardly anything about him. That alone makes Vergil wary.

Vergil stalks them a little. Practice for improving his badly-eroded stealth skills. Lurking on rooftops and occasionally in a pocket fold of reality, he is treated to the development of their relationship: endless "making out sessions" in which Nero skirts the edge of satisfying his lust and then inexplicably backs off; hours in which they simply talk, exchanging histories and still-boyish hopes; moments when they simply look at each other or touch or spend time in each other's presence, treasuring the novelty of companionship. Vergil scrutinizes any details of Red's backstory that he overhears, but detects no conflicts. It troubles him to realize how lonely Nero has been, without Vergil noticing -- but then, Vergil has always had Dante, whether he wanted him or not. Nero has had no one of the same age to share struggles and uncertainties with, and he has clearly wanted for it.

Dante catches him at it, eventually. Vergil's standing on a factory rooftop some distance from DMC, watching as Nero tries to do his homework in between salivating at Red, who is perched in his window standing guard. Red has seen him, Vergil notes with approval; across the long distance, the young man nods respectfully, and Vergil nods back. Dante shakes his head as he waves to Red too, then pointedly turns his back on them and leans against the rooftop railing to favor Vergil with a skeptical look. "Trying to make sure he lays the pipe right when they finally get around to it, or do you want to scare the guy so much he won't be able to get it up?"

"Neither." Vergil doesn't have to explain himself, damn it. "And I highly doubt anything will stop him from performing, except Nero himself. Red has shown considerable... readiness."

Dante shakes his head and sighs. "Poor kid. Red, I mean. He's gonna die of blue balls or something."

Vergil tilts his head, understanding something new. "Perhaps something about Red troubles Nero, too." His son has always had good instincts. "Perhaps Red is yet uncertain of where he means to belong. Nero would respect that, if he senses it on some level. He will want to make a clear, _willing_, claim."

Dante raises his eyebrows. "Sure that's not just you being an overprotective parent, coming up with an excuse for why you don't like your kid's boyfriend?"

"If it had been up to me, Dante, Nero would have raised himself in a forest. I'm concerned about his day-to-day survival and continued freedom, not his love life. And for that matter, _you_ are the one who procured him a lover because you didn't like what he might come up with on his own."

Dante has the grace to blush. Then he glances back toward DMC. "I _did_ dig into Red's background, you know. Managed to track down the foster parents. Real pieces of work -- religious fanatics, and abusive. If Red had stayed with them, he'd either be _super_ fucked up, or he would've murdered them by now. I reported them, and I... had a talk with them." He shifts from foot to foot, looking cagey, and Vergil rolls his eyes. He hopes Dante killed them and hid the bodies well, but knowing Dante, he really did just talk to them. Vergil supposes putting them in fear for their lives is something, at least. "But it means the kid's story checks out."

Interesting. "And his biological parents?"

"No info. Kid got dumped off at an orphanage in a basket. No names involved." Dante grimaces. "Only interesting bit is that he got dropped off _with_ that axe of his."

Vergil frowns at him.

"Yeah, I know." Dante shrugs, though his expression is grave. He gets the implications, too. "It vanished after they took him in -- I assume into etherspace, to wait for him to be old enough to wield it. The note in his file said the thing was humming and glowing, until somebody picked the kid up. Actively guarding him."

Troubling. This means Red's demonic parent is the one who originally tamed the Devil Arm, then, not Red himself -- though very likely, the thing has tested Red by this point and deemed him worthy of continued service. "For a demon to take such an interest in its half-human child is unusual," Vergil says. The only other example that Vergil can think of is their own father.

"Yeah. And no low demon gives that much of a shit about any offspring, if it's even capable of thinking." Dante sighs and runs a hand over his hair. "Our Red's got somebody in high places looking after him."

A high-order demon. That kind do not breed easily, or accidentally, with humans. It takes great caution on the demon's part to not kill the human. It takes desire on the human's part to encourage the demon seed to take root. Again, Vergil can think of only one other example of such a thing occurring successfully.

Is Red truly loyal to Dante, then? Or is he a sleeper agent for some other master? If the latter, is he a threat to Nero?

After a moment, Dante sighs and gets up and comes over to flop against Vergil's back, putting his chin on Vergil's shoulder. It's a thing he used to do when they were kids, and it once annoyed Vergil to no end, though he knew better than to protest or Dante would've simply done it more often. Now, however, it is pleasant to feel Dante's warmth and solid, muscled weight against him. After thirteen years of biting, aching cold --

\-- cold forcing its way inside him, cold that eats into his very organs and --

\-- cold --

\--

\--

\--

"Hey," Dante says. His hands press against Vergil's belly, gently. "Come back to me."

Damnation. 

Vergil breathes. "How long."

"Few minutes."

Once, he was mighty enough to challenge a demon king. Now, mere thoughts paralyze him for eternities at a time. He is literally half the man he used to be.

"Hey." Dante's hands slide up to his chest. "Quit that. You came back first try this time. All I had to do was say your name." When Vergil does not respond, Dante presses his face against the side of Vergil's neck; Vergil can feel him grin. "And you didn't try to kill anybody! Come on, Verg, you gotta admit that's pretty good, for you."

Inane fool of a brother. When Dante turns him, Vergil allows it. Dante's fingers thread into his hair, and he pulls a little at Vergil, lifting his own chin a touch. A suggestion. And Vergil knows what Dante wants -- but Dante cannot _give_ such a thing, on his own. Vergil must ask for it first. Must _demand_ it... and they both know that Vergil is in no position to demand anything. He looks away. 

"Please," Dante says. It's very soft. Between them only. It's a lie that Dante has no pride. He doesn't care about his appearance, his poverty, or any superficialities; he cares about who sees his human heart. There is an agony of longing in his face. "I need you. I've always needed you, Vergil."

Vergil does not bend to claim him, and Dante sighs. Then he straightens and brushes Vergil's lips with his own. "Well, I've waited this long," he says. Then he finally steps away, to let Vergil brood as he must after such a moment. Dante's always been good at giving Vergil what he needs.

Vergil too is giving his brother what he needs, if not what Dante wants. No son of Sparda needs a weakling. When he is worthy of Dante again... then they'll see.

They pass the rest of the evening on that rooftop, silent, but together.

#

Midnight.

Vergil is downstairs, reading, when he senses a stir elsewhere in DMC. The old building is not _his_ lair; his blood has not been sealed into its foundations, and its semi-sentient aura is not nearly as responsive to Vergil as to its true master. Still, they _are_ twins. When something in Dante's lair is off, Vergil can tell, even if he isn't sure what.

He sets the book aside and ghosts through the corridors, listening, wondering. Pausing. Red's room. Nero hasn't been spending school nights with him lately. Too hard to sleep when sexually frustrated. On impulse, Vergil blurs through the halls and outside, to a rooftop a few buildings away from DMC. Ah: there. Red, axe in hand, has slipped out of his bedroom window and leapt onto the next rooftop over. He pauses atop a water tower and glances back at DMC for a moment. At Nero's bedroom window, in palpable regret.

Regret? Hmm.

Then Red sighs and turns, and leaps onward. He's heading toward that big park to the east.

Summoning Yamato in her sheath, Vergil waits a moment. There's no time to alert Dante, and he isn't sure he wants Nero to know he's suspicious of Red. Red's a good hunter; following too closely will get Vergil discovered. Keeping well back, Vergil flows after him.

Deep in the park, it turns out, there is an arcane place of power.

Vergil can sense the flow of energies around it, and suspects that the park was built here because of it -- oh, nothing so overt as a coven or demon lord directing city planning. Places of power guard themselves in more subtle ways. A mayor has a dream. A city council member sees a book about public parks. A world-renowned architect gets the sudden urge to do some pro-bono work. Thus the park is built, and the energies keep flowing, and ordinary citizens never notice the odd, enclosed glade over near the spring. No one in these modern times cares that the trees growing there are rowan, thorn, and ash, with an additional smattering of trees sacred to other, older cultures. For extra power.

Someone has found this one, though. Vergil can smell it thanks to the little brook nearby that runs out of the clearing. Fresh water, sweet from the spring... and salty with human blood.

He watches as Red drops out of a tree before the spring. The boy shakes his head, grimacing as if he's got a headache, or as if some sound is bothering him, too loud or annoying to ignore. Vergil hears nothing, but then some spells are keyed to blood -- either that which was spilled to power the spell, or that of the spellcaster. That means a magician of some considerable skill is here.

Fortunately, however, Vergil is also a magician of considerable skill. It's one of his less-valued skill sets. He has no interest in contracted familiars, or any of the things he learned to do long ago, when he thought that any power was better than none. Still, he will do what he must to determine the threat to Nero, if any.

Enchanted glades are easy to infiltrate. The protective power is always trunk-to-trunk; below the roots or above the main branches, there's always a gap in coverage. Moving only with the wind, Vergil leaps into the spindly tops of the trees, drawing the dappled leaf-shadows around himself and perching to watch.

Below stand three people: Red, a young woman, and another, slighter, young man. Vergil would know the two strangers on sight even if he could not smell the kinship between them: they both have the same odd, wine (or blood)-colored hair as Red, and a certain similarity of facial structure. They're all the same age, though different enough to be -- likely -- half-siblings, rather than full. Different human parents, one shared demonic parent. The smaller boy wears a cashmere cardigan and well-made khaki slacks, and has a bowl cut above his disdainful expression. The girl, in a schoolgirl's uniform, has some of Red's wildness, with poufy hair tied up in a single flaring ponytail atop her head. She sits on the (bloodstained) rock beside the spring, one leg up despite the fact that she's wearing a skirt, a toothy grin on her face. The obvious leader.

Red stops just within the glade to stare at her. He seems dazed. Or enchanted? "You," he says. He sounds surprised, and frightened. "It's _you_ who's been..."

"Just a little dream-calling," the girl says, with a shrug. "Just a little tug. Sorry if you found it unpleasant! That's a side-effect of the magic. We've been missing you, Biggest Brother. It's nice to finally meet you at last."

"Brother." It's barely a question. Red knows.

She looks genuinely wistful. "Did you think you were all alone? Poor Biggest Brother! I did, too, at first. We both did -- Mortimer and I, Amalthea is what the humans call me. Father gave me the dream-calling so that I could draw us together when the time was right. But Father couldn't raise us, you see? He wanted to, but he had to go away." 

Red shakes his head, as if he doesn't quite believe what he's hearing. "Is he alive?"

"A more complicated question than you realize. He is with us, though, in at least one way." She hops to her feet and holds out a hand. A naginata with an elaborate blade, shaped to suggest curving horns and filigreed with something like eye-holes, appears from etherspace. Vergil can feel its power even from where he crouches, sheathed in the shadows of the leaves. Another Devil Arm. "He could not stay with us, but he left us help. With these, we could grow strong enough to protect ourselves."

Then the girl vanishes the weapon and summons something else: a box this time, of dark lacquered wood chased with gold filigree, writ all over with demonic runes. Red stares at it, and... sways, blinking, as if looking at the box has made him sleepy. He stands there stupidly, frowning but otherwise unresisting as the girl saunters forward and reaches up to stroke his cheek.

"How beautiful you've grown!" she says, her voice sweet. "The firstborn among us. The birthright is yours, of course; there's never been any question of it."

"Birth... right?" Red definitely sounds drugged, now, his words slow and slurred. Vergil observes this closely, trying to decide whether it's time for him to step in. No; it's not clear that anything bad is happening here. Demon magic often has such an effect. An odd birthright, though, if its bestowing addles the mind of its recipient.

"The legacy of our father, of course," Amalthea says, and -- ah, yes. Her mask has begun to slip. Her face is longer now, her neck attenuated beyond any human norm, and as Vergil watches, her hands lengthen, the nails on Red's cheek turning into claws. Mortimer, too, comes forward, and the movement is strange, bouncy, because Vergil sees that his legs have become backward-jointed, like a goat's. His eyes, and Amalthea's, glow red.

_Familiar_ red. Vergil's belly clenches in sudden, unreasonable dread. He frowns to himself. Why dread? Many demons have red eyes; Dante does, for that matter, in his higher form. And these creatures might be the spawn of a high-order demon, but they are themselves little more than children, and their seduction of Red is clumsy at best. Vergil should descend upon the newcomers and kill them just for that, then force Red to declare his loyalties: Dante's clan and Nero, or these changeling siblings of his and their absentee father. If Red chooses wrong, then Vergil has a convenient excuse to give Nero as to how and why his boyfriend died.

But Vergil is suddenly full of dread, suddenly _afraid_ without explanation, and that stays his hand for longer than it should.

Down below, Red is on his knees, having fallen before the power of whatever is in that box. Amalthea and Mortimer move around him, she in front and Mortimer behind, taking Red's arms to hold him still. He pulls against his smaller brother's hold at once, out of pure instinct, but it's clear that Mortimer's inner demon is awake. Red, unfortunately, is alone within his own skin --

\-- _like Vergil_ \--

\-- and he cannot resist Mortimer's strength. It's clear now that he means to, and that whatever is happening, good or bad, Red doesn't like it. His axe on the ground nearby abruptly flares sparks, reacting to his will, but in the next moment the sparks die and the axe goes quiescent. This so shocks Red that he opens his mouth and makes a wordless sound of protest. But he cannot take his eyes away from the box.

"Don't be foolish, Biggest Brother," Amalthea says in a doubled voice, grinning with tiny, too-many, teeth. "I told you that Father gave us these weapons. Did you think you had tamed yours? No demon as mighty as the great Phantom would bow to a mere half human like you."

Phantom. Red's axe. Is named

_Phantom_.

#

_ It is that rarest of times within the sprawling, ever-changing realm of Mundus: Nelo Angelo has been granted a modicum of mental freedom and a dollop of soul, so that his lord might enjoy him for an evening._

_ That part of it is done, at least, and he walks the halls back toward the Mallet Island portal he has been bidden to guard. His free will will vanish by morning. That is pleasing to Mundus too, to watch his black angel in the aftermath and savor his self-loathing and dread. (The leash numbs so much, but not when Mundus wants him to hurt.) As usual, Mundus has broken things inside his favorite, done things that leave foulness in his mouth or a lingering reek on his skin which is stronger than the general stinking miasma of hell. Nelo Angelo would rather not move in the wake of such outrages; he is healing, but it will take time. He is the first lieutenant of the king of demons, however, and thus he is not allowed to look, or be, weak. Ever._

_ (He must live. He promised. For... for someone. Several someones? Perhaps. Who? He cannot remember.)_

_ Smell of lava, sulfurous and thick. Hiss of it, burning down a wall nearby. Nelo Angelo looks up to see the massive, otherworldly spider that is Mundus' lowest lieutenant, making its way down that wall, its many eyes fixed on him._ Challenge, _it says, wiggling its palps in amusement._ I call challenge, son of the traitor knight, Black Angel, puny half-human waste. Has our lord left enough of you intact to prove your worth?

_Nelo Angelo does not speak, because his voice does not please Mundus. This is a dishonorable challenge, but in answer, he draws his sword -- _

#

Vergil blinks. Time has passed. Damnation.

Phantom -- the lava spider, lowest high-order minion of the Darkness Mundus. Dead by Dante's hand, but still serving its lord as a Devil Arm, apparently, by keeping safe one of Mundus' investments: a puny, half-human waste, called Red.

Below, Red's siblings hold him firm. The box has been kicked away and he struggles actively now -- but they are stronger, and no one has come to help him because Vergil has been lost to nightmares, frozen and shaking in a tree. Amalthea has manfested a second set of longer, extra-spindly, extra-strong arms. These hands hold Red's face firmly so that he cannot turn, while Mortimer keeps him on his knees. Amalthea's smaller set of hands cups something small and round and red-glowing between them -- something that radiates a sickeningly familiar malice as she brings it down toward Red's forehead.

Vergil knows what it is. He's seen something like it before, up close, many times. A red eye. A _third_ eye. The eye of Mundus.

_Soon, my favorite. Very soon, we will be together again._

No. No. Vergil twitches. He should. He needs to... attack. He clutches at his chest, aching with the memory of a leash. He should stop this.

Amalthea sets the eye on Red's forehead. Immediately, long, steel-strong tendrils shoot out from it to wrap around his face, digging into his ears and nostrils. More tendrils underneath the eye twist and whirr, like a drill. It's boring its way into his head. Red begins to scream at this -- and then his eyes widen as some of the tendrils get through and a far worse process begins to take place. Yes. Vergil has seen Mundus do this to others. The eye, which contains a small piece of Mundus' soul, is taking over Red's mind. And since Red is not just some random half-demon but an actual son of Mundus, and Mundus has clearly planned this whole business as some kind of contingency, Vergil has no doubt of what will happen should the eye successfully take control of Red's body. Between the boy's natural strength and the malevolent power of the eye, the reborn Mundus will be weaker than he was... but more than strong enough to begin rebuilding his empire and plotting his vengeance.

And Red? If he is lucky, Mundus will simply devour his soul and obliterate his personality. If he is not -- and Mundus is cruel enough to do this just for the pleasure of it -- then Red will become a prisoner in his own body, aware of what is happening but unable to stop himself. He will scream in silent torment forever, and Mundus will relish every drop of his pain.

Red screams below. Vergil grits his teeth, putting his hand on Yamato. His chest hurts. He cannot breathe, and _Red is screaming_.

Amalthea grins at Mortimer. "Can you feel that? It's our father, returning. Soon, we won't be alone any longer. Biggest Brother will serve him with his body, and we'll become Father's new lieutenants, helping restore him to glory."

Mortimer grins back at her. "Then we eat the humans."

Amalthea laughs, then reaches over to stroke his cheek, with real affection. "Yes. Then we eat the _world_, both of them. As much as we want." Abruptly she pauses, her smile fading as she watches Red writhe. His hands scrabble at his face, trying to get under the tendrils. He can't seem to pull them off, but it's clear she dislikes him trying. "Stop fighting, Biggest Brother. Father will make you so strong. Don't you want that?"

"No," Red says -- sobs. He's terrified. Vergil can see his own eyes around the tendrils; they are wide with horror, seeing into realms beyond this world. "Please. I... I don't... I don't want to _be_ you. Get out of my mind! Father, please, no, I can't. I can't let you. I _love_ him."

"What's he ranting about?" asks Mortimer, frowning.

"Nothing that matters," Amalthea snaps. "Not anymore."

Nero. Red fights his father, for _Nero_. Vergil lived, for _Nero_. And for Dante.

_Soon, my favorite --_

"No." The word is a growl, and it hurts coming from Vergil's throat. Nelo Angelo could not speak, and when he could he was not permitted to say no, so Vergil growls the word again, in defiance, in fury. Amalthea's head jerks up, eyes widening as the shadows untwist to reveal Vergil -- just before he descends like a black angel and slices through all four of her arms. She screams, flailing back, the stumps of her arms spraying ichor everywhere. The force of his strike sends Mortimer tumbling as well. Vergil steps between them and Red.

Behind him, Vergil hears Red gasp. "V-Vergil?"

"Fight him," Vergil tells the boy. He flicks Amalthea's blood off Yamato, then sheathes the sword again so that he is ready to strike. Mortimer has helped Amalthea to her feet, and handed her back two of her severed limbs, which she's reattaching as Vergil watches. It's going to be a hard fight regardless. Their demons are awake. They radiate strength inherited from their ridiculously powerful sire. Red, who hasn't even awakened that power fully yet, will be no help. 

But Vergil finds himself smiling, actually _elated_, for the first time since before he became a slave. Yamato hums in his hand, and he feels her delight. It has been so long since they drew blood together.

"Your father is a disgusting son of a bitch," Vergil continues. "If you succumb to him, I won't hesitate to kill you. But if you survive... my son needs you. So you will _fight_."

Then he has no more time for Red, as Red's monstrous siblings come for him.

From the start it's a battle he cannot win. He has only the one shape, and they endlessly contort and pervert themselves, like their father could. He kicks away Amalthea's snake-strike only to be caught by Mortimer's tentacle lash, which knocks him to the floor. He slices off the tentacle and then gets hit by a tree, which Amalthea has pulled up to throw at him. Vergil lasts as long as he does because of pure skill; they are brutes flailing and smashing, and he is a precision instrument of death. If all things were equal between them, they would be ten thousand times dead. 

But power is what decides all demonic matters. And though Vergil cuts off a hundred of their parts, and bleeds them five hundred times, the damage he inflicts is minimal. And the damage that _they_ inflict...

He skids to a halt at the far end of the clearing, on one knee, bracing himself with a hand. The hand is broken -- healing, but it means that Yamato's scabbard is useless as a secondary weapon for now. It lies twenty feet away. Other parts of him are broken too, but pain is an old friend to him now; he greets it casually then ignores it, in between coughing up blood. How infuriating, though, to be defeated by these children. How particularly humiliating to fall to the son and daughter of his greatest enemy.

And then, at the other end of the clearing, something changes. Red. 

Vergil has paid him no heed, preoccupied with his own battle. But now, as Vergil watches, Red roars like a beast... and changes. His fingers become claws, suddenly, great talons raking at his own flesh, but doing this gets them under the tendrils at last. He strains and abruptly his body is bigger, flexing with massive muscles and enormous white feathered wings; he has become a monstrous, gigantic angel. In this form he is much stronger, and he uses that strength to tear Mundus' eye away from himself. Immediately he throws it to the ground, and then when the thing starts scrabbling on its tendrils toward him again, he smashes it into paste with one huge, stone-heavy fist. That done, shoulders heaving as power blazes around him, he lifts his baleful red gaze to focus on Vergil and his siblings. Not so different now, their Red: his demon shape is remarkably humanoid, like the lesser form of his sire, but fifteen feet tall and thick with muscle. He's got a great thicket of curving horns like a crown on his head, and above his blazing red eyes is the hole bored by the eye of Mundus. Vergil thinks at first that the bloody wound is just slow to heal, but then something stirs in the hole's depths, blinks open, and looks around in confusion. An eye to match the two below it -- Red's own third eye, a natural reservoir of arcane power, forced open early but clearly functional. It is perfect irony, and Vergil savors the realization: in his contemptuous imitation of Sparda, Mundus has badly underestimated his own half-human firstborn. If Red survives this day and eventually masters that third eye and its abilities, there's a very good chance he'll surpass his father.

And as he bears witness to Red's ascension, Vergil feels a familiar stir, at last, within himself.

Well, well. "Are you ready, then?" he murmurs to himself. "Tired of hiding?"

The stir grows stronger. In the depths of his mind, Vergil sees an eye open. This one is blue, slit-pupilled, and irritated. _We were only waiting for you to call us properly_, his demon snaps. It's a lie. The thing fled because Mundus nearly killed it. Its voice is deeper than he remembers, and raspy. Not unscathed by everything they have survived -- but Vergil grins anyway, regarding the demon with something like affection. Pride is all they really have, in the end.

Then the demon rises, and they become one again, at last, at _last_ \--

Amalthea and Mortimer draw back, eyes wide, as armor -- true armor, _his own_ armor, he sighs in pleasure and remembrance -- folds around Vergil's flesh and four great leathery wings unfurl from his back. He extends his hand, Yamato held out to one side. Are they too injured for a Judgment Cut End? Is that _too hard to manage,_ for an inner demon that's spent thirteen years nursing its wounds?

_There's no need to be rude_, the demon replies primly. And then, together, Vergil and his demon tear Red's siblings apart.

When it is done and the corpses have begun to sublimate into energy, he walks over to Red. Even in a crouch, the boy looms over him in this form. "Are you yourself?" Vergil asks, keeping his hand on Yamato's hilt.

"Yes, Vergil." Red looks exhausted. A moment later he sags out of demon shape, becoming just a naked young man sitting on the leaf-strewn ground. The third eye is gone, but there's a scar on his forehead where Mundus' eye wounded him. Vergil suspects this scar will never go away completely. Red presses a hand against it, grimacing. "He was... in my head. I couldn't think. Everything -- he wanted to take it, twist it... God, I can still hear his voice." He shudders. It clearly took everything he had to fight off his father, body and soul.

Vergil understands. More than anyone else in this world, he knows what Red has gone through.

There is a double thundercrack overhead. Vergil looks up to see Dante high above the clearing in demon form, though he sheds it almost at once and drops to the ground. Nero is with him, also in demon form, though he just flies down to land in that shape; he doesn't have Dante's hangups about letting others see his demon self. But they both stare at Vergil's demon shape, and Vergil holds onto it longer than usual, just to let them take it in. It's Nero's first time seeing him this way, ever, and his son's eyes are gratifyingly awestruck before he nods at Vergil, then hurries over to help Red to his feet.

When Vergil slips back into humanshape, however, it is the look on Dante's face that soothes something old and long-unhealed inside him. Dante's smiling as he comes forward, respectful acknowledgement in his gaze as he says, "Finally got your stuff together, huh?"

And it is good, so good, to be able to say, "Yes. Finally."

#

He is himself again, at long last, and there is a need he must fulfill. Power, he thinks, reflexively -- but no. He has enough of that, for now. He needs something else.

They return to Devil May Cry, where Nero impulsively hugs him and then flinches back and hisses at him and then goes over to wrap his arms around the seated Red, glaring balefully at Vergil until Dante gets sick of it and tells Nero to go ahead and claim Red, damn it, if otherwise he's going to get pissy every time a dominant demon gets near his boyfriend. At which point Nero blinks as if it has only just occurred to him that this is the problem -- whereupon he drags Red to his feet and off toward his room. "Let him rest, first, dumbass!" Dante calls after them, and Nero hisses back at him, too, for good measure, before closing the door to his room and locking it. "I sure hope they close the window this time," Dante sighs, in Nero's wake. "Neighbors have been complaining about all the, uh, moaning."

As soon as Nero's door is closed, Vergil unfolds from the corner where he's been waiting -- because he is a civilized demon, after all, and would never be so crude as to devour prey on the floor in front of everyone. He sweeps forward and captures Dante by hooking an arm around his neck, and leaps up to the upper level and their room. There, he tosses Dante onto the bed, locks their own door, and then an instant later he has Dante pinned. His hands shake a little on Dante's wrists. He's breathing much harder than the minimal exertion merits. This need is a wound inside him, raw and aching, and only one thing will heal it.

Of course Dante has not fought his manhandling. His brother waits, actually, watching and smiling, ready to be made Vergil's. Once, Vergil took him, hurt him, tried to break him. It only made Dante stronger. Now they are both strong, and there's no need for cruelty. Now their strength is something to share.

"Tell me that you need me, again," Vergil commands.

Dante writhes as if the words are a caress. "Yes. Always. Please, Vergil. Please, God, finally."

So Vergil falls upon him, and Dante bares his throat, and there are teeth and blood and bindings worked, of course, but this is not the core of it. There are lips and soft cries and skin upon skin, too, which matter just as much. None of these things are what Vergil really needs, however. He gets that later, deep in the thick of things, as he fucks Dante and moans beneath Dante's claws and knows in this magnificent mix of pleasure and _wanted_ pain that he is whole and free, completely.

But this, too, is not what he needs. Not quite.

Afterward, when they are both spent and Vergil rests with his head on Dante's chest, listening to the strong beat of a heart he has known since conception, he says to Dante, "I love you."

Dante's fingers, which have been idly carding Vergil's hair, go still. "What?"

Vergil sighs and sits up so there can be no doubt of what he says. "I said that I love you. All of me, this time. Is there a problem?"

There. The look on Dante's face as he stares back at Vergil, blinking, eyes slowly widening. He has said a variation of this to Dante at least once in the months since his rescue from slavery, but he doesn't think Dante believed him -- or perhaps Dante thought he meant the words only before, when he was a weak and wretched thing with no demon in him. This time, with Vergil's mark fresh upon his throat and Vergil's haughty glare reinforcing the words, they seem to finally sink in. Then... ah, it's perfect. Dante's throat works. He opens his mouth, closes it, blinks fast, then looks away, because he doesn't want Vergil to see the tears well in his eyes. Unacceptable. Vergil wraps a hand around his throat and fingers around his jaw and pulls Dante back to face him.

"N-no problem," Dante says, blinking fast and swallowing. He's twitchy, too, biting his lip... and then he breaks down, curling up and shutting his eyes and trembling, tears streaking his face. Vergil hasn't seen him like this since they were children. He doesn't need Dante to say it back, now. This kind of pure submission, from a demon of Dante's raw power and accomplishment, is its own undeniable declaration.

And it is, at last, what has Vergil needed. He cups Dante's head and kisses each of his wet eyes and holds him close, murmuring soothing things like "Mine," and "Forever," in his ear. It's perfect.

And then he lays his head back down, to rest in his heaven, and to savor his brother's happiness as his (long over)due. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Uh, okay, so this is now a *four*-parter. The whole goal was to get Nero laid, right? But Vergil decided to take over Part 3 and make it all about him, the selfish bastard, so I'll have to shunt Nero climbing Red like a tree into a chapter of its own. Honestly, these guys, so difficult.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which the mighty Redwood tree gets climbed.

Nero locks the bedroom door and then listens closely against it. He doesn't _think_ his father wants Red, but Nero's demon is up in arms about Vergil going off alone with Red and _rescuing_ him and then showing off his beautiful demonic form to Red, and it's hard to settle the creature without making at least a token effort to ease its fears. He's aware that some of its anxiety is because the power dynamics of Devil May Cry have been badly upset by the day's events. Demons like to exist within a nice clear stable hierarchy. But is Vergil stronger than Dante, now? Will he be the demon in charge of their lair, if so? Also, is Nero still stronger than Red, or has Red's little upgrade changed things there too? They all need to just create a nice safe pocket dimension somewhere, and fight it out. Until they do, Nero's going to be kind of a paranoid wreck.

But. He turns to Red, who sits slumped on the edge of the bed where Nero put him, his gaze a million miles away. Vergil has told them the essentials of what happened in the forest glade, but Nero is beginning to suspect that his father undersold the whole thing, in typical Vergilian fashion. Is there any kind of positive spin to put on the fact that Red's long-lost siblings attempted a reverse-exorcism of their dead father's soul into Red's body? Nero tries to imagine what it might be like to grow up thinking oneself an orphan, only to suddenly discover family -- and then that family _attacks_ you. He can't imagine it. It's too horrible.

So he goes over and sits down gingerly beside Red, trying to emit silent _I'm here for you_ vibes, because that's what a good boyfriend does at times like this.

"I saw so much," Red whispers. It bothers Nero that he whispers. Red's a pretty even-keeled guy, normally -- doesn't shout, doesn't do soft speech. Doesn't even curse much. Now, however, he is badly shaken, and it shows. "He showed me things, and laughed when I tried not to see them. Like my _mother_." He grimaces. "He split himself into fragments -- clones -- and sent them into the human world whenever there was a breach. The clones seduced human women; he can be charming, when he tries. But his power made sure they all became pregnant, even if they were using birth control. And then they all _died_. Every one. The strain of the power he exerted upon them, of carrying such powerful children... just wore them out. Even if they tried to abort the children, they still died." He shakes his head, expression full of anguish. "He watched them from the demon world, and it amused him that they got sicker and sicker. And my mother... she actually wanted me. He _laughed_ when she died, Nero, with tears on her face because she knew I would be left alone."

"Holy fuck." That's worse than anything Nero could imagine. He met Mundus once, even though he was only four at the time, and he'll never forget the cold amusement in the bastard's eyes as he watched Nero struggle and bleed. He hates that his father _belonged to_ someone so awful, for so long. "Knew the guy was a monster, but that's..." He's got no words. Red nods unhappily.

"And I'm the monster's firstborn son." Red is six and a half feet tall. Nero loves that his guy is so big; it's like cuddling a mountain. But when Red hunches now, great shoulders bowing in his misery, he seems to shrink. And, God, he's shaking. "What if that's in me? All that evil? What if I...?"

"Hey." Nero turns to sit facing him, and takes his hand. "You're not him. You're not like that."

"I _could_ be."

"But you're not! And that's what matters. It's a _choice_." He sits up on his knees and puts his arms around Red's shoulders. Red shudders, then turns his face into Nero's chest, and Nero holds him tight, stroking his hair. "Come on, now. You think my father would've let you live? If he thought you were another Mundus, he would've chopped you in half."

He feels Red inhale a little, at that. "No," he says, in a tone of wonder. Red's like Vergil in that; the threat of death is soothing to him, because the usual violence and cruelty of the demon way is at least predictable and rational. If Red can find comfort in Vergil's ever-watchful, utterly merciless looming presence, then Nero guesses he really must be The One. Red murmurs, "And he wouldn't let me be with you, if he thought I would go bad."

Nero rolls his eyes. "I'd like to see him try to keep me from you." Then he thinks that through. "Well, okay, actually, I wouldn't. But yeah, Dad actually _saved your life_. He must like you. Weird."

Some of the tension goes out of Red, and he un-hunches a little. "That... _is_ weird."

"Welcome to dealing with my father. Look." He smooths Red's hair down, and kisses his forehead. There's a ridge of scar tissue here that wasn't, before, and he remembers what Vergil said of Mundus' eye. Does the scar bother Red? Nero runs a thumb down it in particular, and feels Red relax just a touch more. He files that away to consider for later, and says, "You're exhausted. I remember the first time I awakened my demon. Once the adrenaline wore off, I felt like I'd gone twenty rounds in the sparring ring with Dante. Come on, get some sleep."

Red sighs, slumping as if Nero's reminder has made him more tired. He's leaning heavily on Nero, too, which he doesn't usually do. "I'll go back to my room," he says, with audible regret. They haven't been sleeping together lately. It's too hard, when they want each other so much. But... Nero bites his lip. It's different, now.

"Stay," he blurts. "It's the weekend. I don't have school tomorrow."

This seems to cheer Red up all in itself, and with a soft groan he flops over on his side in the bed. Nero grins and wriggles up behind him. It's ridiculous for him to be the big spoon. Now his face is up against the middle of Red's back. But Red must be too tired to make fun of him or complain, because after only a moment, he slumps into sleep.

It does bother Nero, of course, that Red has turned out to be Mundus' son. There's something grotesquely poetic about it. Nobody alive knows what really happened to make Sparda betray Mundus, but knowing how demons usually do things, it seems pretty likely to Nero that they were lovers before that, which puts another spin on that whole "Sparda awoke to justice" line in the old legend. Basically Sparda dumped him -- which among high-order demons _is_ the sort of thing that would touch off a war. Demon breakups ain't pretty. And because of that, Mundus sent assassins after Sparda, stalked Sparda's children, and then _enslaved_ one of them. He seemed to take particular relish in hurting Vergil, who must have reminded him of Sparda at every turn. And here's Mundus' son, all wrapped up in Sparda's grandson.

_Does not matter_. Nero's demon talks to him a lot more than Dante's or Vergil's seem to. He hasn't figured out whether that's because their demons are fundamentally different for his in some way, or just because Nero's got anxiety and needs his demon to be more of a life coach. It does a surprisingly good job, considering that it's just another facet of his own psyche. _Sire does not matter,_ the demon says. _Your angel is fine and strong; this matters. Pin him when he wakes. Make him do as you please, then mark him so all will know he is yours._ Sullenly, it adds: _So greedy sire will not get him._

Nero chuckles, but... "My angel, huh?" Those feathery wings of Red's look so soft.

He settles and doesn't even realize he's sleepy until abruptly he wakes up. It's much later, the small hours before dawn -- and Red is awake. He turns his head a little when Nero stirs. "Hey," he says.

"Hey, back," Nero murmurs sleepily, planting a sloppy kiss in the middle of Red's back. Red snorts amusement; he's apparently ticklish there. "Thought you were tired."

"I was. Woke up, though, and I feel fine now. I don't think I need as much sleep now as I used to."

"Oh. That's handy, I guess." Red smells so good. Nero wants to roll around in his scent. He settles for biting Red, just a little, in the spot he kissed before. Red twitches at the bite. "I'd probably have better grades if I didn't have to sleep as much."

"Dante said you had all As."

"Well, I'd have them easier if I didn't have to sleep. Lucky you, not having to go to school." It's not really lucky; Red stopped going to school after his foster parents abandoned him. Nero's been tutoring him so he can get his high school equivalence, and it's going well. Red is brilliant and a fast learner, but Nero can't imagine him ever handling a human classroom. Red sometimes gets prey-fixed on the movements of Nero's pen. And Nero doesn't want to think about what he'd ever do to a bully. 

Anyway. Red smells so fucking good. Nero nuzzles at Red's armpit, wanting more of that amazing scent. Red obliges him by shifting his arm forward, and Nero shamelessly puts his face right up in there, breathing deeply. It's like Red's made of catnip, but for demons. Demon-nip. Okay, that's stupid, and Nero chuckles against Red's skin -- but he keeps sniffing.

And, even better, Red's scent shifts a little. Now he smells amazing _and_ turned on, and that's just the best. "Nero?"

Nero pushes his hips against Red's backside. He's halfway hard, of course. "Yeah. God, I can't get enough of how good you smell."

He hears Red lick his lips, and it's an instant turn-on. Nero grinds a little harder against his ass, and sits up so he can stroke Red's gorgeous, muscled arm. Red says, a little hesitantly, "My demon says the scent is meant to entice you. So you'll claim me." Then he swallows, audibly. "You, uh, you smell really good, too."

"What?" Then the words work through his brain, and he lifts his head and stops huffing Eau De Red. "Oh." And then he _really_ gets it. _"Oh."_

Red shifts uncomfortably. He smells painfully aroused. "I should go."

The words come before Nero can stop them, riding on a growl. "You're not going anywhere." Oh, shit, now he sounds like an abuser. With a groan he puts his head down on Red's shoulder. "Sorry, sorry."

"No, it's my fault. I shouldn't have slept here at all. My scent's probably been working on you all night." He makes a small movement, pulling away. Involuntarily Nero's hand tightens on his arm -- and then Nero makes himself let go. It's hard. He doesn't _want_ to, damn it --

Wait. He... doesn't want to.

Red has begun to sit up. He's moving slowly, giving Nero time to restrain himself. Nero stares at him... and then snarls and pounces on him. In a blur he has Red down on his back and he's straddled him, standing on his knees in order to pin Red's arms down. Red doesn't fight, because that would only make things worse. He swallows hard, watching Nero with open hunger... and yet he does not _act_ on that hunger, which is infuriating. But Red has proven himself a gentleman, and Nero really doesn't want a _gentleman_ right now.

"Hey," Nero says. He licks his lips, swallows. He can't take his eyes off Red's neck. "I need you to fuck me. Right now, okay?"

Red sits up at once. He's too strong for Nero to hold anymore, which means he was just letting Nero do it. There's a low earthquake rumble in his voice as he breathes, "Do you mean that? No more 'no?'"

Nero grins and feels his sharpening canines prick his lip. "No more no. All the yes. Right now." Suddenly Nero can't help it anymore. Like a striking snake he wraps his arms around Red, setting the claws of his demonic arm into Red's back and threading fingers into his hair to tug. Red doesn't fight him on this, his breath quickening as he figures out what Nero's doing. He starts to lift his chin and Nero grabs his face with shaking fingers. "Do you -- " The demon in him snarls at him, and the urge to just _take_ Red, without asking, is so powerful. Nero groans and presses his face against Red's cheek. "Please, I want to -- " It's awful. He needs to ask. Claiming is a powerful, semi-permanent thing; Dante's said it can be broken, but only with a fight or powerful magic. Nero's too human and too decent to ignore Red's consent, but every demony thing in him rebels against asking, and the struggle of competing needs leaves him panting there against Red, shaking and unable to act.

Red, bless him, seems to understand. Very gently, he slides a hand up Nero's back; very slowly, he turns his head aside to bare his neck. Nero can feel the strength of him, in that hand. Red's so much stronger, now -- possibly even stronger than Nero. But the gesture, silent as it is, says everything Nero needs. Red wants to be his. That's all that matters.

Then Nero is _in_ Red, up to the _gums_ in him, his thoughts a crimson haze as he jerks his head and savages Red's throat. He can't help it. He needs to take Red and own him and _hurt_ him, he needs Red's cry of pain and delight. He needs the way Red goes limp and falls back on the bed, submitting so perfectly that Nero thinks **MINE**. Something in him puts a stamp on it. When he tears loose and shouts at the ceiling through bloodied sharp teeth, his demon shouts with him, and their roar shakes Devil May Cry to its foundations.

When he looks down, Red is twitching, gasping, and clutching at the sheets. Healing rapidly, but Nero's done some damage. He tries to regret it and can't. Feverishly he stands up and yanks off his clothes, then pulls the drawer out of the nightstand so hard that it falls to the floor -- but now he's got the lube. Red is beautiful, nude and so strong beneath him, and rock hard even though Nero has torn his throat out. What a _magnificent_ demon Nero has captured for himself! He squeezes half the tube of lube into his hand and slathers Red up and straddles him and angles himself and shoves down. The pain of it makes him shout again, pure human protest because Red is anything but small and he's done absolutely nothing to prepare himself... but the demon in him hisses in his mind: _Yes, yes, need this, make him ours, beautiful pain!_ So Nero takes his own cock in hand, and then he rides his Red, reveling in the awful burn and the stretch and the bliss of having what he's wanted for so long, at last.

He's so into it that he doesn't pay attention when Red stirs and growls and sits up, taking hold of Nero's hips. He does notice when Red starts fucking up into him, because it feels amazing; he sobs with it, too lost for words. They grind against each other like this for a blistering few moments, and then Red growls. "You want more than this." The room spins as he picks up Nero and carries him over to the wall. Then Red slams the breath out of him and hitches his legs up and _he's fucking Nero_, hard enough to make the walls groan, and it's the most glorious thing he's ever experienced.

Too glorious. Nero clings to Red, helpless now, whimpering with every thrust and certain with every pullout that he's going to die before it comes back -- and then suddenly he's shouting, clawing Red's back to pieces, slamming his head back against the wall, coming before he even understands that he was on the brink. It leaves his mind ringing and his body limp. Red snarls and pulls Nero off the wall and puts him on the bed on his face. Nero just lies there, limp and too spent to even attempt dignity. It seems to go on forever, Red pounding at him, and amid the storm, his thoughts are white bliss; he can't even moan. Then he hears Red hiss as if he's in pain. His weight comes down on Nero as he pushes hard a few times and then stops, trembling and making a soft sound somewhere between a groan and a whimper. Nero loves that sound, loves knowing what it means -- but Red's not done. He pulls out, which makes Nero blurt, "Come back," even though he knows that's nonsensical. Red's already getting soft. But he flips Nero over again, onto his back, and proceeds to lick him clean. It's probably the filthiest thing Nero's ever experienced, and while Red does it, he stares openmouthed, struck dumb with awe. Then Red stops licking his softening cock and sucks it instead, which is so incredible and keenly sweet that it actually almost hurts. Nero finally groans and grabs his head. "Enough! Enough, oh God, fuck, you're going to kill me."

So Red flops onto him, and they're boneless together for a while, savoring the bruises and the bliss.

After what feels like days have passed, however, the urge to check something compels Nero to stir. Red's still in a stupor, so Nero pulls him close and licks the dried blood off his neck -- God, that tastes so good that he has to fight the urge to bite again -- and then takes a deep drag of Red's scent. It was amazing before, but it's _perfect_, now. He smells like Nero's.

"Thank you," Red says in his ear, softly. "I've wanted to be yours for a while now."

"Sorry to make you wait. It just, I don't know, felt weird til now. I don't know why."

"Because I was not worthy." Red presses his face into Nero's hair to breathe his scent. "I wasn't battle-tested. I had no demon fighting at my side. _Your_ demon has high standards."

Nero's demon radiates smugness, inside him. Nero resists the urge to roll his eyes. But then he licks his lips, suddenly nervous. "I'm not like my dad," he says. "I don't need to be, you know, the one on top all the time. Figuratively speaking. If you want to claim me too..." He finds himself blushing and has to bite his lip. "I think I'd, you know, _like_ it. I think..."

Red's little rumble of pleasure is nice. But when he sits up and brushes fingers over Nero's mouth to stop him from talking, the look on his face is decisive. "No. I'll claim you when I defeat you in a match, right there on the battlefield. I want to hold you down, and lick the tears from your eyes, and come inside you while I mark you as mine for all to know."

Nero stares back at him and imagines it: being on the ground, helpless or exhausted, while Red saunters toward him, licking his lips and unfastening his pants --

The shudder of pure lust that racks Nero is a terrible, frustrated thing, because there's nothing he can _do_ about it. What Red wants can't be offered, only taken. "Let's go fight," Nero blurts.

Red laughs, then shifts them to their sides, pulling Nero close so that their foreheads touch. "Whenever you want, but wouldn't you rather just enjoy this for a while? Just be with me. Please."

And it _is_ nice, this part. Nero gazes at Red, memorizing the lines of his face and savoring the look in his eyes, and he knows at last that he's made the right choice. "Mine," he says, softly this time. Trying the word on.

Red's huge, toothy smile is so gratifying. "Yours."

Nero licks his lips. "My red angel."

"What?" Red's eyebrows nearly meet his hairline.

"Something my demon called you. Do you like it?" He blurts the last part, anxiously. 

He sees Red chew on it for a while, and then -- oh yes -- he nods, ducking his eyes shyly. "I like it." He sobers a little. "I believe you. When you say I can... choose... who I want to be. So I'll be your red angel, Nero. Or anything else you need me to be. That is what I want. Fuck my father."

Nero laughs despite himself, but... yeah. _Yeah_. He's so happy that he shifts closer and presses a kiss on Red. He means for it to be just a supportive thing -- a good-night and fuck-Mundus kiss -- but Red tilts his head and nips at Nero's bottom lip and Nero inhales and Red breathes out and then they're lost in each other, tasting and being tasted, heat and strength cycling back and forth between them. When they finally part, they're both breathing harder, and Nero's pretty sure they're both thinking the same thing. Still, he swallows and makes sure to ask. _Just take_, his demon grumbles, but it's not much of a grumble because it already has what it wants. "So, uh," he begins.

"Again," Red says, nodding vigorously. "Yes."

"Yeah?" Nero's already licking Red's mouth. "Yeah. Good."

"Very good, I agree." 

Then Nero bends, and Red rolls them over, and they get a nice thorough start on the first of many encores that day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whew! Well, *that* was a journey, wasn't it? Working in original characters is hard. They need a real backstory or they feel extraneous, but giving them a backstory that matters means also giving them a character arc to fulfill, and giving the canonical characters a reason to care, and... anyway. Red's part of the family, now. I feel like he's earned it.
> 
> I'm not done with "A Family Affair," BTW -- just had to pause it because this was beating up my brain. I still like three-way smut in addition to two-way! Also, there are elements of the other continuity here too: Nero's demon in "Repair" is the same silly thing we've met in "Affair," for example. I guess we'll just see what my muse decides to inflict on me, going forward.


End file.
